The devious Cows... and their wrong legs....

Cows.... bovine milk factories and leather sofas in waiting.. or evil alien creatures attempting to take over the world??? Easy question to answer, I hear you say... or is it??!!?? A friend of mine... well, more an aquaintance... well, someone I get paid to be near, to be totally accurate, is of the opinion that our beefy buddies are in fact more cunning than we give them credit for... the leather and burgers are just a distraction, to take our minds off their dastardly plotting to conquer humanity... And what first gave him this idea?? The fact that cows' legs are wrong... they are too spindly to hold them up.... they lie down funny.... they get up funny.... and cattle kill people.... about 20 a year in this country.... which brings me to the conclusion that we are at least winnin the war of attrition....but fear is a funny thing.... I once read an article in some sunday newspaper, that it could actually be beneficial to have an irrational fear and hatred of something... so from that moment I became afraid of Mrs Jenny Torrance of 18, Regent Terrace, Brighton.... who she is, I have no idea... and why I am afraid of her is a complete mystery.... and you don't get more irrational than that!! But I digress.... butthen, I have been ill.... tonsilitis wiped out my camping at Beaudesert, and my prebooked week off work was spent mainly in bed, watching Gorky Park... one of my favourite films.... partially because it's one of the few films that features a car chase with Ladas....and a couple of immortal lines....

Irina: The KGB have better cars....
Arkady: Yes, but they don't always take you were you want to go....

And later on, in the militia interrogation room....

Golodkin: Yes, that's him... Jack Osborne... he came to me, wanted a big church chest... That's not a nun with tits.....

featuring fine performances from William Hurt, Michael Elphick, and Alexei Sayle, along with Brian Dennehy (one of my favourite and I think highly underrated American actors..) its a great film.... but, again, I digress..... my sanity last week was saved by my lady friend, who I think still has it.... but never mind.. I never had much use for it anyway... so, until all Parks are like Gorky, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!

Fatalism.. or not......

Well, the beard that is wise but inebriates not is having a rare old time.... one of the best he's had for a while, to be honest... windowsills full of tomato plants, a coffee table model railway about to jump off the planning board and into reality, an ISA, a lovely fun relationship with an incredibly beautiful woman, a Ford Cortina, and many other great things... strange how things go... which brings me to a quandary i've had for a while.. religionwise I should be a bit of a fatalist, but often I find I'm not.... to enlighten you as to the reasons, I must tel you that the Beard is in fact pagan... and I mean it in the old fashioned sense, not the more modern (and innaccurate) one of Atheist... pagan of course comes from the latin paganus.... meaning country dweller..... meaning one rustic enough to still believe in the old gods of nature, rather than the more sophisticated "city gods..." but i sort of digress... a fair while ago I decided that the old gods of my viking forefathers made far more sense to me, geographically, culturally and faithilly... (is there such a word..?? there is now...) now, according to this faith, a man (or woman, of course) is born when one of three sisters begins to spin a thread.... everyone has a thread, and it is this sister's job to spin them... a person dies when the third sister (of three, I hasten to add...) cuts the thread.... now, it is obvious that no one has any choice in this.... at all... you are born when you are born, you die when you die... this explains, of course, why we all know of someone who was fit, and healthy, but dropped down dead art thirty... and we also know someone who smokes like a chimney and never exercises, and will be celebrating their 80th birthday next week.... but what happens in between...??? well, one theory has it that the second sister, the one who weaves, weaves a pattern that you follow.... the other theory is that she weaves the pattern you make.... now, the first of these denies totally the concept of free will, which, as anyone knows, may or may not exist... there are good arguments either way, and in fact if there is no such thing it actually makes things easier to explain... but it denies the existence of both evil and hope... the second implies that we have complete control over our own destinies, except where our existence is impinged upon by others.... the second is also, however, a more modern way of thinking, coloured possibly by the Nazarene heresy... plus we all know of incidences of "Fate " and "Destiny..." personally, my take on it at the minute is that for most people, it is enoughthat we live our brief lives as we wish, and the second sister is content to tick over and weave what we do... but that at times, wehn it is necessary, either she is instructed (and by whom?? even Odin is subject to her weaving...) to weave a certain pattern for a certain individual, or that she, either in conjunction with her sisters or apart from them, decides for whatever reason to weave that pattern... which leaves us all at the whim of some power whose objectives we cannot fathom, and cannot resist... which to me is a fairly comforting thought... far more so than the Judaeo-Christian tale that God will no longer interfere with our affairs till the end times.... I want divine or supra-divine intervention, thank you very much.... and i think most of us do... but there we are.... anyway, enough from me for one evening... until the cutting of the thread, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!